Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 2004
SIR JOHN
SKEHEL, DR
ROBIN LOVELL-BADGE
AND DR
STEVE GAMBLIN
Q80 Dr Harris: This e-mail is not
on the website, so presumably there may well have been a request
to put them on the website and it may have been refused. I am
asking you whether you have thought about this?
Dr Gamblin: Yes, I have thought
about it, but in keeping with the desire for transparency in the
actions of the Task Force I think this sort of evidence is so
important.
Dr Lovell-Badge: Can I address
that as well. There was a series of e-mails after the Task Force
finished which I had marked `non-confidential' which were not
put on the website, despite requests both to the secretariat and
Colin Blakemore himself. The whole saga finished with a letter
from David Smith saying that he refuses to put them on the website.
Q81 Chairman: You guys are saying
there is more evidence that is not available to this Committee.
Is that what you are saying?
Dr Lovell-Badge: Yes.
Q82 Chairman: Is that available to
this Committee now?
Dr Lovell-Badge: I have submitted
some of it as back-up evidence.
Q83 Chairman: What is missing that
we should have, in your opinion?
Sir John Skehel: On this particular
point of coercion, the most convincing thing is this particular
e-mail from Blakemore to Tomlinson. That has been submitted to
you and left to your discretion, in terms of whether this Committee
publishes it or not. We think it is actually pretty good evidence
that there was extreme persuasion of some members of the Task
Force to decide in a particular way.
Q84 Mr Key: What form did that coercion
take, please? I think it is very important.
Sir John Skehel: Personally, I
am not calling it `coercion'. I think obviously there was some
feeling that to remove the word `coercion' was a requirement before
people signed.
Q85 Mr Key: You are backtracking
straightaway. You are saying there was not any coercion?
Sir John Skehel: I am not backtracking.
I am not a member of the Task Force, so I am not privy to these
things.
Q86 Mr Key: What was the coercion
there?
Sir John Skehel: I think maybe
you should go back to the people who got the e-mail in the Task
Force.
Dr Lovell-Badge: I was in receipt
of various forms of attempts at coercion, such as `phone calls
late at night threatening me with my job.
Q87 Mr Key: From whom?
Dr Lovell-Badge: Colin Blakemore.
Q88 Chairman: How many such `phone
calls did you have?
Dr Lovell-Badge: There were two
occasions in particular, one in the spring and one after.
Q89 Chairman: Would you care to quote
what he said to you?
Dr Lovell-Badge: He made statements
such as "Robin, I don't know how you can disagree with me.
I am your employer."[1]
Q90 Dr Harris: Clearly, this is a
serious allegation, the general allegation, it is hard to comment
on the context of that statement. Were you so concerned about
this that you raised it at a Task Force meeting, because you say
it occurred first in the spring, so it could go on the record?
Alternatively, did you wait until the end of the Task Force to
make this allegation, when it may or may not have disagreed with
your view, because clearly a contemporaneous record or complaint
of that sort, I think, would carry more weight?
Dr Lovell-Badge: There was an
exchange of e-mails after one such set of `phone calls, which
was in the spring, which I did put on the Task Force website,
but those have not been put on the public record, which was to
do with several issues. In particular, we had been arguing the
wording over one of the reports from the Task Force about, for
example, the word `focus' where I did not think it was terribly
sensible to use the word `focus' to describe multidisciplinarity.
It transpired, in one of these `phone calls, which was on a Sunday,
that Colin Blakemore had then a vision for a future Institute
which would have been considerably smaller than the current Institute,
so in a sense we would have lost at least half the science going
on there, including, for example, all the work that I do in stem-cells
and genetics. Colin then asked me, I guess, not to talk about
this, but in the way that the subsequent e-mail exchange was going
about, it was clear that he had a hidden agenda and he had to
declare it, so this was declared on that e-mail exchange. The
next big occasion, there were several occasions and one was after
the final Task Force meeting when the report of that meeting had
been drafted. It had been drafted in the light of the spirit of
the agreement that we had at that meeting, which was that the
central London bids needed to be compared with the Mill Hill option.
Really before the report was finalised Colin Blakemore contacted
both King's and UCL representatives and told them, essentially,
that it was a straight fight between the two of them. It was at
that point that I put a block on the report being published, because
I felt this was certainly not in the spirit of the agreement that
we had at the meeting, which was that any option to move the Institute
had to be clearly better than what was at Mill Hill, which of
course implicitly requires a comparison with Mill Hill.
Q91 Chairman: Is this the first time
you have raised this issue, with individuals, within your workplace?
Obviously, you have prepared this, to come in front of us, but
has it gone wider than this?
Sir John Skehel: What happened
after each of the Task Force meetings was that, Steve and Robin,
it was their responsibility from the Task Force to inform the
senior staff at Mill Hill, and so we have known about that, as
heads of divisions, since those times. In fact, we have referred
to this persuasion that had gone on, in letters, on the website
and to Colin and to the Task Force members.
Q92 Chairman: You understand the
serious implications of you saying this. Not only does it get
restricted to this Committee and so on and the people who are
listening but the press are at this meeting too. Do you understand
that?
Dr Lovell-Badge: I understand
it, absolutely.
Q93 Dr Harris: Does Dr Tomlinson
feel that he was coerced? He signed a letter, a statement, saying
that he thought this was well conducted. He signed this letter
saying the work of the Task Force was properly conducted, and
I do not think any Vice Chancellor is likely to sign—this
is just my view—a statement like that if he felt he had
been coerced, or if there were unaddressed allegations of coercion
which had not been dealt with?
Dr Gamblin: The first sentence
of this statement reads: "The work of the Task Force was
properly conducted and the views of staff at NIMR and the proposals
for the Mill Hill site were fully considered." We are just
looking at the proposals for the Mill Hill site being fully considered.
In the e-mail sent to Steve Tomlinson, I quote: "We didn't
even consider the plans for a new building with a public lecture
theatre, or the other plans for moves within the building that
John proposed. How can we possibly say to Council that we are
presenting the Mill Hill bid as an equal option alongside KCL
and UCL, which we discussed in considerable detail?" To my
mind, that statement directly contradicts.
Q94 Dr Harris: I think my understanding
of this exchange, and I have read this exchange, I spent hours
going through these e-mails, is that the people at the Task Force,
having heard the presentation, and you may not agree with this,
but certainly it appears to me that the majority on the Task Force
feel at least they agree with this, that it was so not an option
to be put as an active option in comparison, that, given that
time is limited, it was not gone into. It was for that reason,
indeed the e-mail that you have read from precedes by saying:
"As Robin agrees, we didn't even discuss it. Do you remember:
Paul" Paul is one of the NIMR nominees "just said that
it was obvious that Mill Hill is not a long-term option within
minutes of John Skehel leaving the room, and we moved on to draft
the recommendations." Then we go into the quote that you
start with. I think it is important to see these things in context.
I think that is ambiguous, the way you have put it, in that it
must have been the view of members of the Task Force, because
it is a key issue, so why would not Paul Nurse say "I insist"?
Sir John Skehel: He denies that
he said it, actually, but that is by the bye.
Dr Gamblin: At that meeting a
vote was taken to see where people's opinions were. Five of the
seven people there voted for keeping the Mill Hill option, so
five of the seven voted for options one and two, which were develop
it at Mill Hill, and the second one was look at relocation in
central London.
Q95 Dr Harris: And the date of this
meeting, the fifth one?
Dr Gamblin: June 21.
Q96 Mr Key: Dr Gamblin, in what ways
have you been coerced?
Dr Gamblin: In the final meeting,
a majority of those present and the majority of all the Task Force
members, including those read in, voted to have the Mill Hill
option on the table. The recommendation of the final meeting was
conditional. That was what we all signed up to, a conditional
recommendation that we look at central London options and if they
provide a better scientific environment then we go forward with
those. The conditionality was lost.
Q97 Mr Key: Dr Gamblin, Dr Lovell-Badge
has said that he was telephoned late at night on a Sunday and
that his job was threatened if he disagreed with the Medical Research
Council. Did that happen to you?
Dr Gamblin: No.
Q98 Mr Key: Do we have any other
example of coercion at all, from anywhere, in terms of Dr Lovell-Badge's
allegation?
Sir John Skehel: The coercion
that was referred to by the other Task Force members focused merely
on this e-mail to Professor Tomlinson. I think that is probably
it.
Q99 Mr Key: So there was not any
other, apart from that one e-mail?
Sir John Skehel: I think that
is the major case but I do not know.
1 Note by the witness: In the context in which
this comment was made, which was inappropriate especially as I
was acting as a member of the Task Force, I could only interpret
it as a threat to my job. Back
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